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The Linux Router Project NHF

(Newbieized Help File)

By Hans-Cees Speel. Please only mail me at hermanb(a)softhome.net, but make (a)->@. Please do not use my other email addresses for this topic!
This file was made with heavy reliance to others work. I hope you believe me when I say that I have tried to give credit where due. Although there are good sources already out there, they are not directly linked from the official site and also not always easy to find. By making this file I have tried to get all info in one page, and by providing it to www.linuxnewbie.org I hope to make people aware of the information pages and possibilities.
Printing version.
Update:

I wrote this file in 2000. Now in may 2001 there seems to be more attention for describing to users like you and me how to configure disks. While this paper is more explicit on how to do things than most others I must mention that the following links do provide sufficient description on what to do for the slightly advanced computer user, even without linux knowledge. Charles Steinkuehlers place is the best way to start. Via his links you will find many other good sites. Charles also does documentation, which helped me use his floppies very well. A good place to go if this page cannot learn you any more.

What is it:


The Linux router project (LRP) is a single floppy Linux distribution built to be used as a router, bridge or gateway; but in this NHF also to be used to share your ISP modem connection with a whole network of other computers.

Contents

First this | What can it do? | What do I need | How-does-it-work | OK, lets give it a try! | What version do I choose? | Downloading and writing a floppy | Making and configuring a Trevor basic floppy | Testing and troubleshooting a Trevor floppy | How to add stuff | Making and running a Materhorn floppy | Trouble shooting and testing the Materhorn disk | Polishing some issues with the Materhorn disk | Configuring the rest of your network | Links to more information | Dont forget: make public your configuration so others can use it! | My configuration files! | For the lrp guru's: help us! |

First this; credit

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The reason for this NHF is the outrageous possibilities of lrp, but the almost complete lack of well described steps to use it. Most of the information comes from the columns of Trevor Marshall in Byte. However, his writings are in many different pages and I thought it a good idea to bring them all into one place. If I get sued by Byte I will let you know:-) I do think that Trevor deserves a lot of credit for opening up this almost-completely-hidden-from-the-public-through-unneccesary-difficult-language-world of lrp. I had tried it before half a year ago, but completely failed.

Second I got some help from Matthew Grant on the Materhorn disk. Thanks!


What can a LRP disk do?

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Good question. It depends what version you take (more below). You can use it to built a router, a bridge, a web-server/ftp-server, or a firewall/gateway. You can also do a combination of some. Sometimes you will have to do some work to really built things (make partitions where your webpages are), but most of the time you only have to type some text into files and you are set to go.
Although you will probably be interested in the gateway/firewall it is good to know that you can do the other stuff too.
Ok, you ask, what the heck is a gateway/bridge/router/firewall and so on.
The gateway/firewall is in this case what you need if you have one modem to your ISP but more computers that you want to use for email, internetting and so on.
A firewall on a gateway makes sure that malicious connections to your computer are less likely to occur so that your computer is harder to hack. A lot less likely I might add.

I presume you know what a webserver and an ftp server is. Those are computers that hold the webpages you view on the internet, and files you download.

The rest is more difficult to explain but I will give it a try. A router is a computer that connects two or more other computers, without looking at security: a router copies everything that comes in and sends it out to its destination. If you connect to www.cnn.com a lot of routers will be in between.
A bridge is also a computer that connects other computers, but in an intranet. If you have one or more sub-networks, and the traffic on the wires becomes too much and thus problematic, a bridge can filter traffic between sub-networks that is not necessary and reduce it. You have to read some books on this if you want to know more.

What do you need?

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OK, you say, but I bet I need a big computer to pull this gateway stuff off? Wrong!

The distribution can be ran on an old computer : a 486 or later with preferably 16MB RAM memory is fine, although 8MB will do. If you use the Materhorn disk (see below) as a router with a pentium III the maker of the disk says you can get the performance of a high-end Cisco router. Do you know what that costs? Well, hmmm, ........ neither do I but I bet it is not for the common man...

Besides your old computer, you will need it to have a network card (NIC) for your local network, and a modem to connect to your isp. Once it is set up, you will not even need it to have a monitor and keyboard. Not all network cards will do. If you have an ISA or PCI ne2000 compatible you are set to go. The Materhorn can work with: SMC; Tulip PCI; Intel EE Pro 100 PCI (usually on board an NLX MB); Digital /Intel Tulip PCI cards; NE2000 PCI compatibles, WD80x3/SMC Elite ISA, SMC Ultra, SMC EtherEzy and of course NE 2000. The Trevor version (see below) can work with the NE2000 ISA and PCI, but presumably also with others.


 

How does it work?

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This is quite a story to explain. For details go to the LRP site and try to read the documentation. It is rather cryptic however (It also lacks good links to other resources).

In short the floppy starts up a kernel with a small root system stripped of everything that is not absolutely necessary. The kernel loads into memory and loads a RAM-drive. A RAM -drive is a filesystem that exists only in memory (like the filesystem you can see as /proc when you run a normal Linux distribution).
 
The different lrp files on the floppy-disk are loaded onto the ram-disk.
Unlike a normal Linux system, you can pull out the floppy without harming the system (or make it write-protected). This is great because hackers cannot get to it this way. If the system fails you can reboot with the floppy and you are back up again. You can also make the floppy write-protected and it will boot up after a power failure without a problem, provided you configure it that way of course.
You could optionaly mount a Linux or other kind of filesystem that resides on the computer harddisk with a website of course (not with the Materhorn disks). If you load such a filesystem read-only you will have a pretty secure web-server system too (unless someone can get root on your system of course).
 
The downside is that it is a bit difficult to get files onto your floppy and that you must not forget to save your configuration to disk, or all is lost after a re-boot. A good point however is that the ftp server of the official site as well as that of the Materhorn site holds a lot of pre-made lrp packages.
 
In fact the lrp is a real distribution (based on debian), and if you want (and know howto) you can add anything you want. You can make it a router, bridge, run an x-server and so on. The only thing is that for some things you will need more space than one floppy offers. You could of course mount a harddrive and find a way to do this anyway. But in this NHF we will not cover that.


 

Lets give it a try!

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You are convinced. You want to give it a try. Now where to start?
You must do a couple of things:
  • 1. Choose what version you want
  • 2. Download the images
  • 3. Write the image to disk
  • 4. Know how to add things
  • 4. Configure the disk and test and trouble shoot
  • 5. Configure your network

    First we will choose the version.

    Choose a version to use

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    You live in a free country (you don't? you are sued for trying to play a dvd?) so you can choose. In this case I will give you two choices. The first is Trevor variant, the second the Materhorn variant. They both have pro's and con's. These are not absolute, since you can extend them both to do practically anything. But they have pro's and con's if you do not want to do too much to alter them.

  • A) The Trevor variant is extendable: you can run it as a gateway. You download images that have a webserver, ftp server and dns server. The con's are security: does not provide a firewall. Also the kernel version is 2.036 (rather old). It will not perform like the Materhorn, but you will never notice a difference if you use an old computer and a 10 mbit ethernet card.

  • The Materhorn variant cannot do a websever, or ftp server without some work on your side. It does come with a firewall standard, as well as with a switch so you can use it as a router or bridge. It is built on kernel 2.2.13 with enhancements. It will perform better on really heavy traffic (professional). You will probably not need that at home however. It has more standard cards already built into it. However, it is much more difficult to trouble shoot because some of the standard commands dont work (like ifconfig). It also does not do IDE harddisks. So you cannot mount a harddisk.

    You choice. Make it and go ahead! If it fails, you can always try the other one too!

    Downloading and writing a floppy

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    Regardless of your choice of version, you need to download an image-file you can write to a floppy. Am image file is a copy of the files that are on a disk. In such an image file it is not only noted what is on a disk, but also exactly where it was. This is done by copying exactly bit by bit what is on a disk. So, if you have an image file, you can create an identical disk.

    You will need to download your version as well as a program to write those files to a floppydisk in the right format. There are generally two versions of LPR disks:

    A) One that fits on a normal floppy using normal programs.
    B). And a normal floppy disk formatted in a special way that can hold more data.
     
    Both the Trevor and Materhorn variants have small and bigger image files. In the case of the Trevor variant the bigger disk has a webserver and the profftp server as well as a caching dns server. Regardless of what they hold this paper will not go into these bigger disks. You can go find information about them through the links section below.

    Before I tell you where the images are, first the image write programs (for windows computers. Linux users should do this with the "dd" command.
    You can use:

  • Raw-write, But better is
  • Raw-write for windows that can be downloaded here.
  • A nice program I know to write both normal and bigger formatted floppy disks is winimage. This program you need to register but at that time you will have your computer up and running (it is kind of expensive I think. If you work professionally you should by it of course: just compare the price of your old 486 to the price of a router. You can also use
  • Grduw as a shareware prog. Also does bigger image files. I liked grduw better, because it succeeded to format a floppy to 1.68 format where winimage failed. Your choice. A little tip: you do not have to install Grduw before you use it. Even better not to, cause it can trash up your system I think.

    I would recommend Gdruw and then winimage. Because both programs can also backup a disk to an image file. Nice to know you have your work backed up once it works. By the way, if you have a copy of Norton Commander: that can do the job as well.

    Where to get the images to write to the floppy? How to write them?

  • For the Trevor variant: Go here. You must unzip it. In it you will find the rawwrite program and trevors.bin. Run rawwrite or raw-write for windows and write the file to a floppy:
     
    Double click on rawwrite.exe. When it asks for a filename type 'trevors.bin' without the ''. Make sure trevors.bin is in the same directory as is the rawwrite.exe program.
    When it asks for a destination drive type 'A:'
    Give 'enter', and make sure there is a floppy disk in your a-drive that is not write-protected. All data that was on this disk will be lost of course. It will be incredibly slow, and that is why raw-write for windows is a lot better.
  • The Materhorn disk can be obtained here (you have to look under idiotimages and take the 1440-eth_ppp.floppy. That is the disk I am referring to.
    If you download the disk , be sure to safe it with "shift" pressed if you use netscape, as netscape might safe it as a non-binary (I don't know about Internet explorer from those cash converters in where was it). In that case it will be corrupt and the image programs will not load it (it happened to me). You might also try to ftp to the Materhorn site.

    Running a Trevor basic floppy

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    Before you put the disk in your lrp-to-be computer, make sure it has a modem on com-port two, and that the NIC is set to 0x300, IRQ=10 if you use the ISA kind. I sure hope so because else you are probably wasting a much too fast computer on this. A PCI ne2000 card can be left in plug-and play (Thank Trevor for that). Trevor has set the IP number of the LRP to 192.168.1.1 and the broadcast address to 192.168.0.255, the subnetwork to 192.168.1.0. and the netmask to 255.255.255.0. You can change it all, but you do not need to: just set the rest of your network to ip addresses like 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3 and so on. See configuring your network.
     
    Put the disk in your computer and boot up. You should see syslinux 1.44 booting up and a lrp blue screen appears (another kind of blue screen!). The kernel boots up and you see white lines flashing by (or crawling if you use a 486 with 8 meg).
     
    Then the prompt is there and says:
     
      Linux Router 2.9.4 myrouter tty1
      myrouter login: _
     
     
     
    At the "login:" prompt type "root" and the "lrcfg" program will automatically run, giving you a menu of system setup parameters.

    Here you can change about anything. Trevor set the NIC to 0x300, IRQ=10, but I happen to use 0x220 and irq 9. At the selection prompt do 3 "Enter" (package settings). The do 2 "Enter" . Then 1 (modules).

    Here you will see the modules that are loaded at boot-up, including ne io=300,irq=10. Go down by using your arrows keys and hit for help. Just change the file by typing and using delete. I changed my the "ne" entry to "ne io=220, irq=9"
     
    Hit "Cntrl-s" and "Enter" to save the configuration. Hit "Cntr-c" to leave the file. Type "q" "Enter" a few times to get back to the beginning.
     
    Now we will set the ip setting and so on. Go to 1 -network settings. then to 1- network configuration (auto)
    If you use 192.168.1.1 for the router you do not need to change that (IF)_IFIPADDR=). In case you are using a direct cable to the internet the second ethernet card (eth1) is available for configuration too.
     

    Scroll a lot down further until the "Domain search order" appears. There put the dns IP addresses of your ISP. Again save with "Cntr-s" "Enter" and quit with "Cntr-c"
     
    Now do "q" and 3 to go to the package settings and 3 to go to dialout and 2 to go to port and username setup. At the fourth line you can change /dev/tts1 to dev/tts0 if your modem is at comport 1. The user name you use for your ISP account must be entered at the first line and all other text must be deleted. In my case it will be "hans" (not really)
    ok, now do "Cntr-s" and "Cntr-c" to save and exit the file.
     
    Do 3 to edit the modem chatscript. After "atdt" you need to typ the number you need to dial. After ogin (no typo, it really says ogin) you need to type the username again and after word the password (not removing /q).
    This is also where your set-up might need something different. My file says only this (and it works):
    ABORT BUSY
    ABORT "NO DIAL TONE"
    "" ATDT4
    CONNECT ""

    So I had to boldly delete what no-one had deleted before (about three lines) !

    By the way that you type your password here plainly and openly means that you better keep the disk in a safe place. But then again, anyone can crack your windows 95 password too....
     
    do "Cntr-s" "Enter" and "Cntr-c" again to go back to the menu.
     
    The pap and chap files. Now in 4 and 5 type your password again, making sure that you delete all other text including the "<>".
     
    Now you need to go back to the beginning menu by giving "q" two times and you need to backup the changes you made to the disk. You do that by typing "b" and "Enter" of course. Then type "c" and do "enter". Then your floppy disk will flash. A little writing to disk and you are all set to test.
     
    If you are curious you can do "q" "Enter" a few times and go to the root prompt. You can go back to the program by typing "lrcfg". At the prompt you can do all kinds of cool things, for one "ps ax" to see what is running. Help will get you some notes on the distributions and how to edit files. A good one would be to do "passwd root" to change the root password. Since it is not set at all that is a good idea. Although it won't stick at my disk. Perhaps this is a bug? I always use "windowsntiscool" (just kiddin'). Ls / will show you what files and directories are there, and so on. cd /etc will take you to the /etc directory for instance.
     

    Testing and troubleshooting a Trevor floppy

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    Now you have backed up you can just reset the computer, but better set the disk to write-protect. Just boot up and do "q" "Enter" "q" "Enter" to get to the root prompt.
     
    There do "dmesg | more" to see if there were errors. You should see some card founds as eth0 and ppp0 should be a registered device. Type "ifconfig" to see if you have the ip number on eth0 you wanted. In my case I got 192.168.1.255. That is not right of course. hmmm.
     
    Aha, after looking into my setting 255.255.255.0 has become 255.255.25 5.0. also I lied to you a little because I use 192.168.0.1 and I had to change some more lines from 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.0.0
    Typo's......
     
    Lets do it again. Change the file, backup 4 and 6 and reset!
     
    Now I do "ping 192.168.0.2"--you should do "ping 192.168.1.2") (my windoze) and it replies! Cntrl-c to stop the pinging, else it pings forever.
    Now the internal network works. Lets check out the external network.... Make sure your modem is connected to the com-port and do ping (your isp dns) like ping 195.96.96.97. If all is well the modem will connect and you will get replies. Then try ping trevormarshall.com and see if you get a reply. If you do your dns also works properly. If you get errors you have a problem. Look in the log files in the var/log/ppp.log file. You can read files by the ae command. You can also do "tail /var/log/ppp.log"
     
    To start and stop the ppp line do "ps ax" will show you that "pppd" is a process with a pid number that runs. If you want to break that process of you can type "kill x" where x must be replaced by the pid number you just saw. You can restart ppp by typing "pppd"

    If you have problems read Trevors articles for clues here , or join the email list on the official site. If the modem fails to initiate have a look here
     
    You are now all set to use your gateway for the windoze and Linux computers. Just remember to set their dns and gateway addresses in the tcp/ip tabs from the network settings.


     
     

    The Materhorn disk

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    The Materhorn disk can be obtained here(you have to look under idiotimages and take the 1440-eth_ppp.floppy. That is the disk I am referring to. You can find files and help here, although the help is very limited.
    Once you have the image, put it on a floppy disk and boot the lrp up (see above for how to put image files on floppies).

    The first thing you do at the prompt is to log in as root: type "root" and push "enter". Then you arrive in the lrcfg program automatically. You see some text in black and white saying Linux Router Project ---configuration menu. You're in!

    The first thing we do is A. set up the networkcard. Type 3 "enter"; 2 "enter" and 1 "enter". Then you are in the file /etc/modules.
    Here you can see all the modules that are loaded. Modules are plug-ins for the kernel, or helper programs to make sure your ethernet cards work in this case. The ones with "#" for it are not loaded and the others are.

    For the ne 2000 cards to work you must make sure that the lines
    8390
    ne io=300
    ne2k-pci

    are not commented out with. "#".

    The cards are standard at IRQ 10 IO port 0x300. Generally stick your ISA card at IRQ 10/IO 0x300 and it will be found. The ne 2000 PCI cards will be found automatically.

    If you want your card to be at irq/9 and io 220, like I do, change the "ne" line above to "ne io=220, irq=9" ; or any other value you want and your computer can do.

    You can comment out everything under the header "wireless" and "Sangoma wanpipe" , but make sure that the lines "slhc" and "PPP" under the header "PPP and slip " are uncommented. Also the things under "IP Masq modules must be uncommented.

    Do "Cntrl-S and "Enter" to save and "Cntrl-c" to exit the file. Do "q" "enter" and you see the package configuration menu.

    Choose 3 and you are in the ppp22 configuration files. Now choose 2: dialup (B).

    Here you must change some things:
    The speed must probably be set to 115200. (depends on your modem, but unless it is ancient this will work)
    The default modem must be set to "/dev/ttyS0" if you use the first modem port. It must be set to /dev/ttyS1 if you use the second comport.
    Now, assuming your isp does not give you a static ip address, you need to:
    un-comment #demand to demand
    Add two lines just before the header "# who I login as" :
    "ipcp-accept-remote"
    "ipcp-accept-local"

    You need to fill in your user name after "name".
    All the uncommented lines then add up to:

    noauth connect "/usr.............(leave it as it was) defaultroute /dev/ttyS0 115200 persist holdoff 10 demand idle 20 10.0.0.01:10.0.0.02 (the numbers are not important, they just need to be valid ip addresses) ipcp-accept-remote ipcp-accept-local name droopy (your user name) crtscts modem asyncmap 000000000 (don't change what it says) lock

    Cest ca! By the way, the number after idle is the number of seconds of no traffic, after which the modem hangs up. If you have internet over the cable, or you do not pay per minute you can easily set this to much more (mine is 3000).

    OK. Now do "cntr-s" "enter" to save the file and "cntr-c" to leave the file.

    Now choose 3 and go to (c) the modem/login chatscript. This is the script that initializes your modem. If anything goes wrong, it is probably due to this script. See Trevors disk above to see what he uses as modem/login/chatscript; it is different from mine. My script looks like this:

    ABORT BUSY
    ABORT "NO DIAL TONE"
    "" ADTD4
    CONNECT ""

    That is all. The 4 after ADTD is the phonenumber the modem has to call. So it could well be ADTD030234233445. Or something else.
    Do "cntr-s" "enter" "cntr-c" and you are back in the configuration file. One to go.

    Do 4 "enter" and you are in the (D) pap authentication file (/etc/ppp/pap-secrets) and scroll all the way down.
    After the last line "#loginname make another name that says

    chubby * ntisgreat

    Where chubby is your loginname, and ntisgreat your password from your ISP. Quite a good password, since it is so misleading and devious:-).
    Save the file (I sure hope you know how to by now) and leave it.
    Do "q" "enter" until you are in the Linux router project configuration menu.

    Other things you might need to do with this disk.

    If you are satisfied with the ip address 192.168.0.254 that the router standard has and the network broadcast address of 192.168.0.255 and the netmask of 255.255.255.0 you are almost done. This means that you have to set your windows machines to these same settings of course with other ip addresses. For instance 192.168.1.1; 192.168.1.2 and so on. You also must feed the dns ip-addresses your isp gave you to the windows machines as well as set the default gateway to 192.168.1.254.

    If you want the ppp program to start up automaticly when you boot up you must change a "#" in the network configuration file. Go to the lrcfg program; go to 1; and 1. You are now in the network.conf. Scroll down to the interfaces section. Uncomment (get rid of the "#" on the first line) the line if_auto="ppp0 eth0"; and comment the line below it; if-auto="eth0"
    Save and save to the boot floppy. That is it!
    Thanks to Charles Fulton for the tip and also Matthew Grant.
    If you want to see whether it works type "ps ax" after booting up and see if "ppp call provider" is there. If it is, it should work. I would recommend you first test your ppp line without automating this, and when that works automate starting up at boot time.

    Now type "b" "enter" to back up the settings to the floppy. Type "c" "enter" and then "e" "enter". The disk will now back things up.
    When it is done do "q" "enter" once or twice and you see the prompt: myrouter#.
    If you forgot something you can always go back to the configuration program by doing "lrcfg" "enter". On the prompt do "init 6" and the computer will reboot. To start the modem do "net ifup ppp0" It should say "starting interface ppp0" If not, go to trouble shooting.



    Trouble shooting and testing the Materhorn disk

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    When it is backed up (leave the disk in) type root to log in. Get out of the configuration program by typing "q" "enter". On the prompt type ping 192.168.1.1; if you have a computer with that ip on your network (use an ip you have of course). If you do it will respond. If not your have a problem with your ethernet card. Do "Cntrl-c" to stop the pinging or lack thereof.

    To see if a network card was found at bootup, type "dmesg | more" and see the bootup texts. Hit the space bar to scroll on.
    Now do "tail /var/log/ppp.log"
    This will show you the ppp.log file. Since it is empty you will see nothing. This will come in handy in a second.

    To start the modem do "net ifup ppp0" It should say "starting interface ppp0" If not, you have a serious problem (I know because I did when I changed too many settings).
    If you type the up-arrow twice you see the tail function again and "enter" will show you that two ip addresses are set. "ps ax" will show you that "pppd call provider" is a process with a pid number that runs. If you want to break that process of you can type "kill x" where x must be replaced by the pid number you just saw. Now do ping 195.96.96.97 (any valid ip number will do) and the modem should call in and you should see replies. Do "cntr-c" to break it of. Do tail /var/log/ppp.log and you should see a line " connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS0. You have success! If not.........God help you to find that typo...

    Now the final test. Boot up a computer in your network and try to acces the internet. Better first start with pinging an ip address.
    I assume you use windows. Go to start (control-escape)->run. Type "command" and do "enter". You now see a dos box. Type "ping 195.96.96.97" or any ip address. You should see replies after a while. Try twice! If you see nothing also try ping www.cnn.com.

    Also fun is to do "tracert 195.96.96.97". You can see what ip addresses your ip-packets pass that way. Do "tracert --h" for options. Having fun? more fun is "arp --h". Buy a book to find out what it all means. You can break things with arp, by the way. You can also type "telnet ip-number" and start hacking. You can also do "ping --h"

    Enough playing around. Now do, still in the dos box "ping www.cnn.com". That should give replies. Not? Try another address. Still nothing? Then your dns is not configured well (if ping did work above). If it did reply, fire up netscape and it should work.

    If all is not well, some debug commands you can try are 'ip -s link' to show the interface counters, 'net ipfilter list [input|output|forward]' to check the IP filter rule byte counters, and 'net ipfilter list masq' to show the current masquerades that are currently happening.'ip -s link'

    Congratulations, you are now the owner of a real lrp gateway with firewall.



    Polishing some issues with the Materhorn disk

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    Now; some things left that you want to do perhaps. If you want to change the ip addresses to 192.168.0.x; I will let you do that. There als remains one problem: the network only responds well the second time you ask netscape to go to an address. I remember to have solved that particular problem once but the answer has slipped away from me. If you know the answer; mail me!

    If you want to change the ip address of the lrp: that is not too difficult.
    On the console prompt type "lrcfg" "enter". Do 1 and 1 again. You are now in the /etc/network.conf. Scroll down to the section "interfaces". Change "eth0_IPADDR=192.168.1.254" to 192.168.0.1 (or whatever). Also change "eth0_BROADCAST=192.168.1.255" to 192.168.0.255 (or whatever).
    Go further down to the section "ip filter setup". change "INTERN_NET=192.168.1.0/24" to 192.168.0.0/24 (or whatever but the same as above).
    change "INTERN_IP=192.168.1.254" to 192.168.0.1 (or whatever but the same as above). You can also set ip forwarding here.

    Save the file; save all to the disk and reboot: init 6

    If you see messages on martians when looking at the ppp.log file no joke) do :
    On the console prompt type "lrcfg" "enter". Do 1 and 1 again. You are now in the /etc/network.conf. Scroll down to the section "interfaces". Change Eth0_IP_SPOOF=yes to =no.

    If you see a line in the ppp.log file about a proxy arp, do lrcfg enter 3 enter 3 enter 1 enter and comment out the line with proxyarp.

    Some issues I have not resolved yet: if you cannot use route and ifconfig, how to see the routing table and your ip?
    I would also like to know if the firewall rules allow ICQ and other prorgtams like quacke?

    That's it!

    Adding stuff

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    Now if you got the gateway running there are some things you might want to add. There are a lot of packages you can add if you know how. You might also want to slip in some files. Go to Trevors columns for many tips, but here I will tell you some essentials.

    First how to add things. At the ftp server of the lrp are lots of .lrp files you can download. They have ftp servers, and lots of other programs you might want to install. These are available as xxx.lrp files. In fact these are gunzipped tarballs xxx.tar.gz (If you rename them to xxx.tar.gz you can open them and have a look with winzip) that are renamed to xxx.lrp. But how to drop them in the distribution?

    Like this:
    Download the lrp file you want from ftp://ftp.linuxrouter.org/linux-router/
    First copy the lrp file to the lrp floppy. To add the file, you must edit the "syslinux.cfg" file on your lrp floppy. To do that insert the floppy in the running lrp machine and type
     
    mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt
    cd /mnt
    ae syslinux.cfg
    You will find a section of the file saying:
    LRP=log,local,etc,modules,dialout

    And you must change it to say:
    LRP=log,local,etc,modules,dialout,xxxx
    where xxx is the name of the package. If you want to can backup your floppy before you do this with winimage or the gdr program. Save the file doing "Cntr-s" and "Enter" and "Cntr-c". Unmount the floppy by doing:
    umount /mnt

    After that you must probably configure the package you just dropped in.

    Configuring the lrp to work with the rest of your network or the other way around.

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    The computers in your network that connect to the LRP gateway need to ne configured right. I will not provide you with a network howto here, that is a topic on its own. Provided you have a working network you have to make sure this is ok:

  • The network broadcast is the same on the lrp and the network. Both the Materhorn and Trevor disks use 192.168.1.255
  • The subnetwork is identical. Both the Materhorn and Trevor disks use 192.168.1.0 (or 192.168.1.0/24). The netmask is 255.255.255.0
  • The computers in your network need to have the gateway set to the ip of the lrp gateway. Trevor uses 192.168.1.1 and Materhorn 192.168.1.254.
  • You need to feed your computer the DNA addresses of your isp.


    You can set these thing on a windows 98 or 95 computer in the control panel-> network-> configuration -> tcp/ip [yournic] settings. [Your nic] is the ethernet card you use to connect to the lrp gateway we are now setting up. In those settings you need to set up your ip number (192.168.1.2 will do and 192.168.1.3 and so on. ) netmask (255.255.255.0) by 'specify an ip address'. At the gateway tab you thus enter 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.254 and dont forget to click 'add'.
     
    You can set the dns in the same place as we just typed in the gateway address, but at tab dns.

    Links

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    Charles Steinkuehlers place is the best place for images and explanation and links these days. Here is its official homepage.
    General resources here

    Making a Trevor floppy with a cashing nameserver, prof-ftp and a tiny webserver. (not implemented here, only links).
    The list where Trevor answers questions is http://trevormarshall.com/BYTE/index.htmlhere.
    here
    Hereare resources about the Materhorn Disk.

    Howe to make the Trevor floppy including a name cashing name server and a dhcp server. You can get directions here.The disk can be downed here. If you use grduw, don't install the program, just run it when you've unpacked it: if you install it all sorts of evil can hit your computer (read trevors pages). Be sure to check out Trevors columns, because he tends to replace the file with newer versions (adding functionality)

    Share!


    If you have one of the two disks going at home and you are with a big provider, please share your configuration files. Other users will be especially interested in the following:

    If you have a Trevor disk:
    Your ISP and area/city/country; what kind of modem you use; your networkconfiguration if you do not use a modem on a comport, but an ethernet card that connects to a cablemodem or something else; possibly a link to your own image file (change the password!) your dialout pppd option file and your modem chatscript. Put them all in one text file and post mail them to me or post them at a place at www.newbie.org.

    If you have a Materhorn disk:
    Your ISP and area/city/country; what kind sof modem you use; your networkconfiguration if you do not use a modem on a comport, but an ethernet card that connects to a cablemodem or something else; possibly a link to your won image-file (change the password); your dialout pppd option file (/etc/ppp/peers/provider; but if you changed anything in it also /etc/ppp/options) and your modem chatscript (/etc/chatscript/provider). Put them all in one text file and post mail them to me or post them at a place at www.newbie.org.

    Change your password!!!!!!!!

    My configuration files can be found here.

    Of you are an lrp guru and know better

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    If you have been reading and laughing your buns of because there are stupid mistakes in this file, please mail me and help me to improve. If you know smarter ways to do it, also mail me. If you just know everything better than anyone, rather mail your psychiatrist.

    I am especially looking for a way to start up the ppp line on the Materhorn disks automatically. If you mail me please do so at hermanb(a)softhome.net
    Dont forget: make public your configuration so others can use it!
    For the lrp guru's: help us!

    That's it!